Lamentations 1:11

11 All her people groan as they search for bread; they barter their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. “Look, LORD, and consider, for I am despised.”

Lamentations 1:11 in Other Translations

11 All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, O LORD, and consider; for I am become vile.

11 All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures for food to revive their strength. "Look, O LORD, and see, for I am despised."

11 Her people groan as they search for bread. They have sold their treasures for food to stay alive. “O LORD, look,” she mourns, “and see how I am despised.

11 All the people groaned, so desperate for food, so desperate to stay alive that they bartered their favorite things for a bit of breakfast: "O God, look at me! Worthless, cheap, abject!

11 All her people groan while they search for bread. They have traded their precious belongings for food in order to stay alive. Lord, look and see how I have become despised.

Lamentations 1:11 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 1:11

All her people sigh
Not her priests only, ( Lamentations 1:4 ) ; but all the common people, because of their affliction, particularly for want of bread. So the Targum,

``all the people of Jerusalem sigh because of the famine;''

for it follows: they seek bread;
to eat, as the Targum; inquire where it is to be had, but in vain: they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
or, "to cause the soul to return" ^F24; to fetch it back when fainting and swooning away through famine; and therefore would give anything for food; part with their rich clothes, jewels, and precious stones; with whatsoever they had that was valuable in their cabinets or coffers, that they might have meat to keep from fainting and dying; to refresh and recruit their spirits spent with hunger: see, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile;
mean, base, and contemptible, in the eyes of men, through penury and want of food; through poverty, affliction, and distress; and therefore desires the Lord would consider her case, and look with pity and compassion on her.

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FOOTNOTES:

F24 (vpn byvhl) "ad reducendum animam", Montanus, Piscator.

Lamentations 1:11 In-Context

9 Her filthiness clung to her skirts; she did not consider her future. Her fall was astounding; there was none to comfort her. “Look, LORD, on my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed.”

10 The enemy laid hands on all her treasures; she saw pagan nations enter her sanctuary— those you had forbidden to enter your assembly.

11 All her people groan as they search for bread; they barter their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. “Look, LORD, and consider, for I am despised.”

12 “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see. Is any suffering like my suffering that was inflicted on me, that the LORD brought on me in the day of his fierce anger?

13 “From on high he sent fire, sent it down into my bones. He spread a net for my feet and turned me back. He made me desolate, faint all the day long.

Cross References

• 1. S Psalms 6:6; S Psalms 38:8
• 2. S Jeremiah 37:21; S Jeremiah 52:6